Posts by Feargal Reilly

Re: Way to miss the point

A better example would be to complain to Steve Jackdon about how stupid it was that the only way to survive the headhunters in "Shamutanti Hills" was to fail a good luck roll. If it were Peter Jackson coming out then I suppose the shire thing would make sense.

Re: Why is there such a push to get women into IT?

Simple, strength through diversity.

We know there are many females who do not follow their interests in technical fields as they do not see a viable career path. This is caused not by lack of technical ability but by cultural stereotypes that have been built over generations. Logical or not, people look to their peers and role models as a marker of what they themselves can and should be doing, and when young girls do not see other females involved in IT they shy away too. It's a vicious circle which needs to be broken by providing additional support and encouragement to those who might otherwise not engage.

Movements such as Coderdojo and Young Rewired State have seen 50:50 participation of male to females under the right conditions, but at other times this has been 90:10 due in part to the perception of young girls that coding isn't for them. We have to work at creating the right conditions until females coding is normalised.

As both a commentard and a crossfitard, I assume this to do with the annual Reebot Crossfit Games that ran last weekend in California. I would have joined another cult, but crossfit was the only one that involved eating more bacon - and proper Irish rashers at that, none of this excuse for pigmeat the yanks come up with.

Re: Three

The trick is to not ask bluntly, just steer the conversation until you reach the point where they realise they are no longer the right person to be talking to you. Something along the lines of:

You: I'd like you to do this for me.

Rep: I'm sorry sir, but I can't do that.

You: Okay, so who can do that?

Rep: I'm sorry sir, what do you mean?

You: Well somebody in the company must be able to do that.

Rep: I'm sorry sir, it is not a part of our procedures to do that.

You: Okay, so who can change the procedures?

Rep: I'm sorry sir, we are not allowed to change the procedures.

You: Well somebody in the company must be able to do that.

Rep: I'm sorry sir, but we do not have a procedure that let's us do that.

You: Okay, so who decides what to do when there is no procedure?

Rep: I'm sorry sir, but I do not know.

You: Well then, would your supervisor know what to do?

Rep: I'm sorry sir, but my supervisor will tell you we cannot do that.

You: Okay, that's great, you can transfer me to him so.

Rep: I'm sorry sir, but you do not need to speak with my supervisor

You: Well I don't mind. He might be allowed decide more than you realise.

Rep: I'm sorry sir, but I don't think he can help you.

You: Okay, so remind me, this call is being recorded yes? Are you telling me your supervisor doesn't have any discretion? Perhaps you could transfer me to his manager?

Rep: Uh... I'm sorry sir, uh, let me transfer you to my supervisor.

I've never been failed to speak with a supervisor when I've wanted to, sometimes there's a few levels to work through so you may have to pull the same trick with the supervisor. Just remain polite and reasonable, don't expect them to do something they are not allowed to do. Eventually you'll reach somebody with the relevant powers.

My favourite was when UPC had overcharged me a few months worth of bills. They told me they would credit it from my next bills but I wanted them to pay it back immediately. The rep stonewalled for a while, but eventually passed it to his supervisor who told me there was nobody in UPC who could write a cheque. I rather reasonably asked for it to be taken out of petty cash. I was told they don't do that so I asked what happens if they run out of milk in the canteen on a Friday afternoon. He had his manager call me back and I received a cheque in the post the following week.

@karl 15 Space Junk?

It depends how much power they meant - it could have been a stage which continued to burn after seperation, or even gas venting at a later date which would provide thrust. Maybe they are just trying to make you paranoid. The context really isn't very clear, but that is likely the case with any sentence using the term "boffins".

@Paul Donnelly

Perific

Since you covered most concepts of how to use a mouse, thought I'd plug the Perific Mouse, best mouse I ever used: although for the price, it'd want to be. You can use it normally, or it can sit on your hand as you type - I don't have to do the keyboard->mouse jump everytime damn time.

welve paches?

Stop this nonsense

Look people, critical thinking is dead. Hype is the new social currency, fed by the scent of verbal ejaculate surrounding the brave new idiots of the blogimedia.

So yeah, Chrome is what it is; another browser with it's own take on things. Whilst I applaud the Ted Dziubas of this world, I take a momentary break to observe that there is strength in diversity, and should measure our response accordingly.

So well done Google, you can do what many others do, and do it in your own way.

And well done Ted, for telling it how the fuck it is, which appears to be something many others can't do.

Renewables

It's said that the main challenge facing renewable energy generation is that renewable sources are not generally very responsive, hence the need to keep the coal-burners on the grid to handle the spikes.

This mechanism reduces the severity of the problem for renewables.

That said, ZM hit the mark with the observation that the more a company can do, the more ways they'll find to take money away from you.

The Lisbon treaty does *not* bringing the death penalty back. that's just some rather successful anti-Lisbon FUD.

All 27 members states of the EU have ratified Protocol 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights which forbids the use of the death penalty, with some exceptions such as use in times of war, etc.

However, only 22 member states have gone on to ratify Protocol 13, which forbids the death penalty in all cases.

France, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Spain have not outlawed the death penalty in all cases. They are still subject to Protocol 6 and so have an exemption in times of war, etc.

All other members states have completed outlawed the death penalty.

The Lisbon Treaty maintains the status quo by allowing a member state to have exemptions in times of war, etc. It more or less restates protocol 6, because not all members have yet ratified protocol 13.

Countries such as the UK, Germany, and Ireland, that have ratified Protocol 13 still have completely abolished the death penalty in all cases. Under the Lisbon Treaty, this remains the same. All the Lisbon treaty says is that a country is allowed to have an exemption in times of war, etc. It does not force this exemption on them, and in order for somewhere like the UK to introduce this, it would first have to de-ratify Protocol 13 of the ECHR.

Instead of wasting your time repeating lies on the Internet, why not spend a few minutes to lobby your nearest French/Italian/Latvian/Polish/Spanish politician/friend/cat on the issue?

Where are the pics?

Why hasn't Web 2.0 validated me?

Why is it that no matter how many online forums I post on, I never get any responses flattering enough to validate my existence? I've tried all sorts of witticisms and pop-culture references, and yet still, at the end of the day, nobody seems to care. I've even pointed out people's grammatical and spelling mistakes, but nobody ever thanks me for it. Is my brilliance is too nuanced and subtle? Do I have to wait for Web the Third, or should I give Twitter a twirl?

for broad definitions of "hack"

From what I've been hearing, the "hacker" just tried difference values of DocID in the url http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=721 on the assumption that it would be uploaded some time prior to it's "release".

It's about as exciting as a journo leaking an embargoed press release.

Official Secrets Act

How in the hell did this get out? It seems to only be kids who found out about it, maybe SIS don't monitor kids-TV or something, a leak to Newsround perhap? Since it's four-ten years old who know about this, it's probably been doing the rounds in the playgrounds for some time, I'm guessing something slipped when the 2005 FoI act was brought in.

Either way, heads will roll for this one, MI6 won't take kindly to this being public.

@Helium running out

More precisely, the US reserves of helium are running out. While it can be extracted while processing natural gas, it usually isn't as it isn't economically worthwhile. There is likely to be an increase in the cost of helium and changes to how/where it is processed over the next few decades, but it's not likely to run out anytime soon. As G R Goslin has said, best not waste it though.

M&S Food to introduce new product range

In related news Marks and Spencer today announced it's new Soylent Green food range. Spokesman Louis Hill said that the Soylent Green brand guarantees a more sustainable approach to food production, meeting the needs of the modern consumer.

"Just as our latest home furnishing ranges have shown we are at the cutting edge of modern furniture design, we feel Soylent Green shows we are also at the cutting edge of the Green movement", he said.

Recent controversies over the sourcing of chickens have led to lower sales, with consumer groups calling for a greener approach to food production. "Our logo has been green coloured for years", Mr. Hill added.

@Jamal

Spammer friendly too

A very basic check pretty much all mailservers preform is to check DNS to ensure that the sender domain exists. This now gives spammers an easy tool to create their own functioning domain to stick in their outgoing address, at no cost to them.

@Simon Holt

Oil be

Having done my time scrubbing pumps in the past, I say good luck to whoever it is who have to keep the grease and grime levels low enough to render details visible. Those things get filthy from all the fumes.

And in RST?

Average speed of traffic in London...

There must be some weird physics going on at the media-level - 7mph on the radio, and 18mph in print?

In future I suggest we all go by the average *reported* speed of traffic in London, which, based on measurements taken yesterday is 143691.429 lgph. That's 12.5 mph for you old fogies who are still not with "it".

@Matt Bryant and Simon Ball

The story that the RAF losses were because of the attack vectors used deploying the JP233 is nothing more than that - a story.

From http://www.raf.mod.uk/gulf/operations.html

"A total of 6 Tornado GR1s were lost in action 5 of which were involved in loft-medium level attacks with 1,000lb bombs, and one tasked on a low level JP233 mission, which was lost some time after the attack."

Holistic Ex-Ching Edition

@John Mark 2

At least they allow you to use the bluetooth modem at all. I went in to three, and they laughed me when I asked if it's possible - they disable modem access entirely, it's the dongle or nothing. Not much bloody use when my PDA doesn't support USB.